At one point all of the king's kids refused to be king so they set up a government where the people elected judges. There were different levels of judges where lower judges could somehow dispose bad higher judges.

It was a huge catastrophe. The 100 years or so of being ruled by judges was plagued by civil war. Eventually it broke down completely into tribes.

Fortunately Jesus came along to visit soon after and fixed it all up. There is no information on how the government was set up for the following 400 years.